Hey everyone, I'm Chris Hall and this is the downtime podcast, the podcast for the true fans of gravity mountain biking, taking you deeper into the sport than anywhere else.

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All right, this week we're heading into the future of downhill with New Zealand junior

Olly Clark. The juniors is stacked right now and riders like Olly are already putting down

times that would challenge the elite ranks. We talk about what it's like being part of this insanely fast new generation, how his riding has evolved and what he's doing

to give himself the best opportunity to be on the top step. Ollie also shares what it's like to take

part in the gnarliest downhill race on the planet, Red Bull Hardline, and why keeping the fun

in riding is so important for him to perform. Ollie is yet another indication that the future of the sport is bright. So, without further ado, here's Olly Clark. All right, we are in Mawzine at Atlas Rideco, which is the place, if you fancy an awesome holiday out here for a bit of riding, and I'm by Olly Clark. Ollie, welcome to the downtime podcast mate.

How's things? Good, thanks. Yeah. Thank you for having me. It's an absolute pleasure, dude. And we should start with with Hardline because that's the most recent thing I think people will have seen you doing. And it was a late invite, right? You weren't in the original rider line up. Talk to us a little bit about when you got the call.

Well, I was originally like talking about it to Tohoto and stuff and the team and, um, TJ the filmmaker, overheard, our filmmaker for MS. And he's like, oh, I'll message

Rob and Rob was like a bit skeptical. And he's like oh i'll message rob and um rob was like a bit skeptical and then he's like

oh we'll put him on the reserve list and then after leo gang he was like okay we're going to push

a little bit harder and after jackson pulled out i got the message and so i was stoked yeah Yeah, that's super cool, man. Yeah, because

Toto's been before, yeah? He went to Tazzi. Ah, that's it. Okay. That was his first one.

He's been to Wales before, but not riding. Yeah, okay. Fair play. Talk us through the week a little

bit then. So did you get any riding in the UK before Hardline? Yeah, so we flew in to Manchesterchester um we were staying with tj yeah and then went across to

revolution oh nice yeah yeah and that was sick like we did a day ride in there um and then

tuesday i think before hardline we went to do. That was my first time there. Nice. And it was so good. It's a proper spot that, isn't it? Everyone was here too, so it was just such a sick crew riding. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. And then what's the setup like for Hardline? Because I believe they look after you guys pretty well. Yeah, so they kind of like rent out a resort or something.

Like it's huge.

Yeah.

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